Rush Hour, Juarez – July 9, 2009
You keep hearing about the murders.
Bad.
Real bad.
They are the wind that blows in the perfect storm.
World economy goes down. The countries that make the goodies for the world go down.
The corporations that hire people to make the goodies unhire the people to make the goodies.
Less people moving around.
The news gets bad, the reality worse.
The murders continue unabated.
One tries to get away from it.
People still go to the cafes and discos, an intense energy comes off the party on Avenida Lincoln, a desperate defiance of the storm that has engulfed this spirited city. Living the big life is an act of defiance. Or is it just partying on?
The Army comes in for God only knows what reason (more murders at this time this year than the year before, before they came).
Nobody comes over too much for any reason (i.e., nobody except the world press corps looking for the story -a little- about a country that has had over 12,000 murders since this catastrophe began. If you only count them…things are good). Juarez and the word tourist destination: nostalgia.
There’s not much traffic. Necessary travel and little else, particularly as the sun gets low and the murderous night arrives, hissing, like the heat and the humidity that makes everything, at this time of year, slow and sluggish and sweaty. Cab drivers at Rush Hour at one of Juarez’ busiest taxi stands have few riders. Enough time for many games of Dominoes. And the chips fall, one after another, as the city to the south follows them.
It’s not a very good time in Juarez. People are keeping their stiff lip up, but increasingly, the lip is getting frozen in a caricature of a smile, a nervous tick preceding it. This must end. This has to end. Even Juarez gets tired.
This is a Natural Disaster (humans are nature, too, right).
A Perfect Storm.
A storm of Falling Dominoes.
